How to cook this authentic Chinese eggplant recipe, inspired by one of the most respected authorities of Chinese cooking, Fuchsia Dunlop.

You can use either Japanese or Chinese eggplant (even Italian globe eggplant, too)

A unique Chinese sauce that’s savory, sweet and piquant, called “Fish-Fragrant” even though there’s no fish in the ingredients!

Step by step video recipe

I’m not very creative when it comes to cooking eggplant, usually I poke a few holes with a fork and roast until soft. The poking is important – it prevents the eggplant from exploding in the oven. Go ahead, ask me how I know!

We grow both Chinese and Japanese eggplant in the garden, both of which are less-bitter than the standard fat Globe variety. I’ve heard cooks needing to “salt” the eggplant and let it sit to release its bitter compounds. Not needed for the Asian variety!

But either variety is perfect for this Chinese Eggplant recipe.

The skin of Japanese and Chinese eggplant is much thinner as well.

While this is a Chinese Eggplant recipe, I used Japanese eggplant variety (my Chinese plant was towards the end of its life cycle and was only poppin’ out eggplant runts).

Other than just simple roasting, this is really the only other way I cook eggplant often – it’s a wonderful flavor party – chiles, garlic, soy sauce and a touch of black vinegar to balance the flavors out.

The translated Chinese name for this dish is “Fish-Fragrant Eggplant” which is so unfortunate. I’m sure it’s deterred many cooks from even trying the recipe. The reason it’s called this is because the dish originates from Sichuan province of China.

Sichuanese cooking has so many different descriptors for its 56 distinct cooking methods and 23 “official” Sichuanese flavoring combinations. The “Fish-Flavored” refers to the combination: salty+sweet+sour+spicy+garlic+ginger+green onion. Don’t worry – the sauce doesn’t taste fishy, nor the does the recipe contain any fish at all. It’s a sauce that goes GREAT with many Sichuan fish dishes – thus the funny translated name.

Make It Low Carb!

Low Carb: Chinese Eggplant Recipe with Spicy Garlic Sauce
If you’re on a paleo diet, substitute the soy sauce with Liquid Aminos or Coconut Aminos. There’s only 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in the recipe, and you can omit that, or substitute with sweetener of your choice. I prefer a little bit of sweetener, to counter the acidity of the black vinegar.

I’ve been cooking this Chinese Eggplant recipe since my college days – my recipe doesn’t include Sichuanese Chili Bean Paste like Fuchsia’s recipe – it’s not a common ingredient in standard supermarkets and I have trouble finding the bean paste even today outside of Asian supermarkets.

Here are a couple other tips for Chinese Eggplant recipe:

1. If you can find Chinese bean paste – add 1 tablespoon to the stir-fry and cut the soy sauce to just 1 teaspoon.

2. The original Chinese Eggplant recipe uses Chinese Black Vinegar – which is very similar to young balsamic vinegar. You can use either. The balsamic vinegar should be tart, not sweet – so don’t use the expensive super-aged super-thick sweet stuff (save that for your strawberries).

3. If you can’t find Chinese or Japanese eggplants, just use globe eggplant! Cut in similar sized strips. Baby globe eggplant is really good too. No need to salt. Just rinse, cut into thin wedges.

In a wok or saucepan over high heat, add 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil and swirl to coat wok. When wok is hot, add eggplant in a single layer. Cook 2 minutes and flip over each piece so they cook evenly. Cook another 2-3 minutes, flipping occasionally.The egg plant should have changed in color, the skin wrinkled and the flesh soft.

Jess’ Family Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe

Hello! Meet a friend of Steamy Kitchen, Jess. Her family is Singaporean, and this recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice is her family recipe.

Hey all,

Jess here!That’s me chewing on a mango in my tiny kitchen preparing for a meal at Synergy Farm (a farm on an island!) where I intern at. I’m actually in my kitchen right now on my lunch break, looking out at the barn and the carrots in the north garden, munching on a quesadilla with beet greens and feeling amazed all over again at how I ended up here, on a farm, writing to all of you wonderful readers!

I’ve been here since late March, just after my 24th birthday. Before that, I was living in Cambodia helping girls get an education; before Cambodia, I was working at Google, and waaaaaay back before then (well not so long ago, actually) I ran an afterschool program in the Bay Area. I love adventure, and I love to consider the small ways I can change the world for the better, and over the past few years, I’ve become convinced that my way of making my world better is through food.

All this food love had to come from somewhere, and I tend to attribute a lot of it to good genes. My mum’s side of the family is Singaporean and I grew up in a whirlwind of popiah, freshly baked curry puffs, and beef rendang. Though I’m open to all kinds of cuisines, I hold a special place in my heart for a good plate of chili crab or chicken satay.

When I was small, my family made many trips to my grandparents’ house back in Singapore. Early in the mornings, before it got unbearably hot, my grandpa would head down to the local hawker center (a food court with lots of different stalls) to pick up breakfast. He would come back to the house with a bag full of packets wrapped in banana leaves, still hot, shiny with oil, and intensely fragrant. We’d each carefully unwrap our packet, uncover the pieces of tender, perfectly steamed chicken on top of savory rice. We’d tuck in to the fragrant ginger-garlic-chickeny heaven, topped in our favorite combinations of magical sauces and eat till we were ready to face the sticky tropical day.

These days you can still find Hainanese Chicken Rice in hawker centers across the island for a couple of dollars a plate, and also in high-end restaurants serving up authentic cuisine. This is what a hawker center looks like — like a mall food court, only with mee goreng and peanut soup instead of Sbarro!

Hainanese Chicken Rice often called Singapore’s national dish. When I was a kid and my family would go back to visit Singapore, I had three loves: fried bananas, paratha, and chicken rice. When I was visiting family last November, it was one of the first things they took me to eat — the carcasses in the stall beckoned to me with the promise of super-fresh tender chicken — some things just don’t change.

Though Hainanese Chicken Rice gets its name from its origins in Hainan, China, it was really when overseas Chinese brought the dish to Singapore that it got a new personality and became famous.

According to my mom, this recipe is really only authentic when made with a “kampong” chicken, which means basically, a chicken from the village: the kind that roam around in the sun and eat whatever grubs and grass and scraps of rice are available. These kinds of chickens look pretty skinny by our standards, but they have an amazing flavor that I can only describe as “extremely chickeny.”

Here on the farm, we raise the closest equivalent to a “kampong” chicken that you’ll likely find in the US — not as scrawny, but pretty much as delicious. Our chickens are organically fed and pasture-raised, which means they get to spend their days outside, hanging out in the sun, roam in the grass, pecking at greens and grubs. We raise about 120 in each batch and they take about 8 weeks to go from chick to chicken rice. As my mentor, Farmer Susan likes to say, these chickens live a really really good life and then have one really bad day. They are ridiculously good just boiled plain in a pot of water and salted slightly.

All that good care makes these chickens more pricey than your average bird and on a farmer’s salary, it’s tough to afford them, but thankfully in our chicken processing just a couple weeks ago, I was able to snag a couple of tiny 2-pounders that we wouldn’t be able to sell, that were just perfect for chicken rice. -Jess

Make It Low Carb!

Low Carb Hainanese Chicken Rice:
Enjoy the chicken and the soup without the rice, or make Cauliflower Rice. Shred cauliflower in the largest holes of box grater. Add the shredded cauliflower to a wok or large pot with about 1 cup of the chicken broth. Bring to boil, turn heat to medium, and cover pot. Cook for 7 minutes, or until the cauliflower is soft.

How to cook Hainanese Chicken Rice

Hello guys and gals, it’s Jaden back again – Jess gave me her family recipe for Hainanese Chicken Rice and I made it to show you step by step instructions. It’s a multi-step recipe, with 4 components:

1) Chicken
2) Rice
3) Chili Dipping Sauce
4) Soup (but you don’t really have to do much other ladle into the bowls)

So, let’s start with the CHICKEN.

Part 1: Making the best Hainanese Chicken

This is an organic supermarket chicken (I wish we were all as lucky as Jess to be able to have fresh chicken!) Here’s the deal about the chicken. You gotta buy the best. Because this Hainanese Chicken Rice dish is all about the pure taste of the chicken, you really want to go with organic. It’s worth the money for your health, the environment and taste buds.

When you buy a whole chicken and are cooking it skin-on, and ESPECIALLY if you’re steaming or poaching the chicken, you want to make sure you get the “nasties” off.

I’m sure by looking at this photo you know what I mean. What I’m after is smooth, clean, unblemished skin.

So I give my guy a facial.

Yes, I’m totally serious!

I exfoliate my chicken.

How to give your chicken a spa treatment. Start with a small handful of kosher salt. Regular table salt is too fine to use for exfoliation. Sea salt is too expensive. Just use kosher salt. Even if you don’t have that loose skin on your chicken, it doesn’t mean you don’t need to exfoliate — there’s still hidden guck and yuck that is trapped in that chicken skin. TRUST ME. Your chicken will look and taste better this way.

Exfoliate chicken

Now RUB RUB RUB!!

Be gone wrinkles!

Be gone trapped guck!

Be gone dead skin!

Work those pores!

Rinse, pat dry and ta-da!!!

Glistening.

Glowing.

Soft.

Smooth.

Taut.

Chicken.

Check those lovely pores.

Season chicken

Season the inside and outside the chicken with salt and stuff the bird with ginger and green onions. Remember, you are not only seasoning the chicken, but also the poaching water too (which becomes the soup), so be generous with the salt.

Put it in a big pot and fill with water to just cover by 1 inch. Note that some of the stuffing might fall out. Which is totally okay. Don’t worry.

Cook Hainanese Chicken

Bring that baby to a boil and then immediately turn the heat to low to keep a simmer. You’ll begin to see some white, floaty scum, which is really denatured protein. I have a handy dandy scum skimmer. If you don’t have a scum skimmer, buy one, it’s only $2! The scum clouds the soup (and just doesn’t taste good), so it’s better to remove it.

After simmering on the lowest heat (just enough for little tiny bubbles to break surface) and your chicken reaches the correct temp (take the chicken temperature at the thickest part of the thigh that’s not touching bone, it should read 170F). This is is done!

Prepare an ice bath and immediately lift the chicken out of the pot with 2 big slotted spoons or 2 big fat spatulas.

Tip:Don’t try to grab the chicken legs to pull the chicken out. You’ll end up tearing the skin and maybe even tearing the drumsticks out of the chicken…which results in you standing there holding two drumsticks, while the rest of the chicken plopsg back into the boiling hot broth….which then splashes back on your arms and face. Speaking from experience, of course.

Oh, and don’t even THINK about pouring that clean, delicious broth down the sink! We’ll be using that to cook the rice, prepare the sauce and to drink as soup! So, remember, gently lift the chicken out from under and try not to disturb its delicate (and exfoliated!) skin.

My pot of ice water wasn’t big enough, but it worked, I just turned the chicken over a few times to make sure both sides were cooled. Plunging in an ice bath stops the cooking process immediately AND tightens the skin, making it springy and firm. The quality of the chicken skin is important in this dish! It’s all about the skin texture.

Part 2: Soup for Hainanese Chicken Rice

See here? That’s your soup! Taste, and season with salt, if needed.

Part 3: Cook Hainanese Rice

Clean rice

I use Jasmine rice, or long grained rice. To feed six people, I’m using 2 cups of raw rice. Place the rice in a large bowl and fill with water. Use your hands to swish the rice around. This helps rid of excess starch and other rice cling-ons, like dust. Carefully tilt bowl to drain out water, using your hands to keep the rice in the bowl. Repeat 3 more times. The water will never be “clear,” but just less cloudy. Fill bowl again with fresh water and let the rice soak in water for 10 minutes.

After soaking, drain out as much water as possible.

Saute garlic & ginger

Grab a pot and saute the garlic and the ginger. Mmmm…can you smell that??

Add the drained rice to the pot.

Fry the rice grains for a minute…this gives the rice SO much flavor! I like to add a bit of salt to the rice.

Cook rice with chicken broth

Remember that broth? Well, pour 2 cups of this into the pot. Normally when cooking rice, I’d go with a ratio of 1 cup rice : 1.25 cups water/broth. But since we’ve already soaked the rice and the rice has absorbed some of the water, I’m going with 1:1. Bring the rice to a boil, then immediately turn the heat to low, cover tightly and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest (still covered! no peeking!) for 5-10 more minutes. Done.

TIP: Oh, if you have a rice cooker, even better! Sauté the ginger and garlic in a small pot on stove (some rice cookers have a saute function). Add the rice, sauté for a minute. Then, pour everything into your rice cooker, including broth, and start cooking.

Perfect rice: Fluffy and flavorful.

Part 4: Chili Sauce for Hainanese Chicken Rice

If you’re a fan of sriracha chili sauce, this will knock your socks off. Jess puts sriracha, lime, sugar, salt, couple tablespoons of that lovely chicken broth, garlic and ginger into a blender and wheeeeeee:

More Recipes to Explore:

Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe

While your chicken is cooking, it helps to prepare the ingredients for your chili sauce and rice. Both of these are usually assembled after the chicken is done because they require the chicken broth, but you can get started washing and soaking the rice, chopping the garlic and ginger. In this recipe, all of the poaching broth is reserved — some is used in the rice, a small amount is used in the chili sauce, and the remainder is saved to be heated and served as a simple soup to accompany the chicken.

FOR THE CHILI SAUCE

FOR THE TABLE

1 bunch fresh cilantro

2 cucumbers (thinly sliced or cut into bite-sized chunks)

COOK THE CHICKEN

To clean the chicken, with a small handful of kosher salt, rub the chicken all over, getting rid of any loose skin and dirt. Rinse chicken well, inside and outside. Season generously with salt inside and outside. Stuff the chicken with the ginger slices and the green onion. Place the chicken in a large stockpot and fill with cold water to cover by 1 inch. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat, then immediately turn the heat to low to keep a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes more (less if you’re using a smaller chicken). Check for doneness by sticking a chopstick into the flesh under the leg and see if the juices run clear or insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh not touching bone. It should read 160F. The chicken will continue to cook to 165F during rest.

When the chicken is cooked through, turn off the heat and remove the pot from the burner. Immediately lift and transfer the chicken into a bath of ice water to cool and discard the ginger and green onion. Don’t forget to reserve the poaching broth for your rice, your sauce, and the accompanying soup. The quick cooling will stop the cooking process, keeping the meat soft and tender, and giving the skin a lovely firm texture.

COOK THE RICE

Place rice into a large bowl, and fill with water. Use your hands to swish the water around, cleaning the rice. Tilt bowl to discard water, keeping the rice in the bowl Repeat 3 more times, until water is less cloudy. Fill bowl again, with fresh water. Let rice soak for 10 minutes.

In a wok or pot, heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the ginger and the garlic and fry until your kitchen smells like heaven. Be careful not to burn the garlic and ginger! Add in your drained rice and stir to coat, cook for an additional minute. Add the sesame oil, mix well.

Add 2 cups of your reserved poaching broth, add salt and bring to a boil. Immediately turn the heat down to low, cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit (with lid still on) for 5-10 minutes more.

CARVE CHICKEN

While your rice is cooking, remove the chicken from the ice bath and rub the outside of the chicken with the sesame oil. Carve the chicken for serving.

MAKE CHILI SAUCE

To make the chili sauce: Blend your chili sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth and bright red.

SEASON SOUP

You should have six or seven cups of the reserved poaching broth left over to serve as soup. Just before serving, heat up the soup, taste and season with salt as necessary.

Serve the chicken rice with chili sauce, dark soy sauce, cucumber slices, and a bowl of hot broth garnished with cilantro or scallions

Cauliflower Fried “Rice”

When summer started, we sat down as a family to create a new eating plan. Our youngest son, Nathan, experiences chronic headaches and also an underactive thyroid. Scott and I both have put on some pounds (okay, a lot of pounds) in the past few years. Andrew, our 14 year old, is stick-skinny and needs to increase his stamina and strength.

With all these varied health and medical issues, we decided that the best place for us to affect change was to start in our own kitchen.

Under the guidance of one of our doctors, who also specializes in nutrition, we cut out white starches and as much sugar as we could, during the weekdays. We gave ourselves more freedom for the weekends.

That meant for Monday through Friday, no breads, no pastas and no white rice. The kids could have a small treat at the end of the day, but Scott and I tried to stick to no sugar.

For a mixed Asian family, no rice and no bread was so much harder than no sugar! What would I even make for dinner?! In the beginning I focused so much on what I couldn’t have, and became so frustrated that I snuck out to Panda Express just to eat a bowl of white rice.

After the first tough week, it certainly got easier. Not only did the entire family feel better, but I was learning to think about meal planning very differently.

Dr. Baker advised us to have the same breakfast every single day, to have a large salad every single lunch, and then something simple and unfussy for dinner. Leftovers from dinner could be added to our lunch salad for the next day.

I no longer created elaborate weekday dinners with 3 items (before, each meal included a starch, vegetable and protein). Instead, we went back to simple and easy. Like, Buddha Bowls (here’s a recipe) and other one-wok meals.

What’s a one-wok meal? Well, it’s simply a stir-fry jam-packed with colorful, healthy vegetables and thinly sliced meat or seafood. Everything is cooked in a single wok, and comes together in about 15-25 minutes.

What made the meals interesting not necessarily the ingredients in the stir-fry, but different sauces that I could make from scratch and whisk in a bowl in 2 minutes.

I’m going to give you 2 different Asian sauces that you can make in 2 minutes. Both of these sauces start with San-J Tamari Soy Sauce.

What’s the difference between Tamari & Soy Sauce

Well, not all soy sauce is created equal. There are many different grades and processing methods for soy sauce.

We’ll also share with your our favorite one-wok meal – Cauliflower fried “rice.” While our eating plan eliminates as much sugar as possible, I still do add some sugar to my sauces to create delicious, balanced flavor. One tablespoon of sugar (I prefer honey) for an entire family meal is so minimal compared to high sugar bombs like chocolate cake.

How to make Cauliflower Fried “Rice”

When I created this recipe, I kept 2 things in mind: healthy and convenient. We use ground chicken (you can use ground beef, pork, turkey, whatever) to cut down on prep work – no slicing, no de-boning. Just put the ground chicken in a bowl and mix with the marinade: San-J Tamari Soy Sauce and sesame oil. Let the chicken sit while we prep the vegetables.

This recipe uses frozen cauliflower florets to cut cooking time in half! Defrost the frozen cauliflower florets and chop into fine “rice.”

When you use frozen cauliflower florets, you don’t have to trim, cut, boil, drain, chill the cauliflower, which could add 15 minutes to prep and cooking time. Instead, just defrost (I just defrost in microwave, on low for 2-3 minutes), then chop into fine pieces. Frozen cauliflower is raw, but the freezing and defrosting process makes the florets softer, more tender and is perfect consistency for fried “rice.”

Here’s an important step: blot the surface of the cauliflower dry. Wet cauliflower will “steam” and not stir-fry well.

We use kale in our recipe, just remove the tough stems that run in the middle of the leaves. We just want the soft, leafy leaves! Just use your hands and rip the tender part away from the entire stem. Roughly chop the kale.

Let’s Cook!

All my fried rice recipes start the same way. Ingredients are cooked separately, then brought back together for the stir-fry. This method is simple – only one wok is needed and you don’t even need to wash the wok. Also, this method keeps the fried rice tasty and light….not goopy and heavy. I want my egg to taste like egg…and the kale to taste like kale. If I added everything into the wok all at once, I’d end up with a goopy mess that tastes like a mishmash of ingredients.

Step 1: Cook the egg

Just a quick scramble. Then remove the egg to a large bowl.

Step 2: Cook the meat

Just a quick stir fry until meat is browned. Then dish out meat to the same bowl as egg.

Directions:

1. Marinate the chicken in the tamari soy sauce and sesame oil. Set aside.

2. Mince the cauliflower into very fine, small pieces. With paper towel, pat the cauliflower as dry as possible. Remove the tough middle stem throughout the kale leaves and roughly chop kale.

4. Heat wok with just 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil over high heat until you see whisps of smoke. Add the egg and scramble until just set. Dish out egg to a large bowl.

5. Return wok to stove on high heat. Swirl in 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. Add the ground chicken, and stir-fry until nicely browned. Dish out ground chicken into the bowl with egg.

6. Return wok to stove, over high heat. Swirl in the remaining tablespoon cooking oil and add the green onions. When fragrant, add in the cauliflower. Spread the cauliflower all over surface of wok. Let cook for 1 minute. Add in the kale and frozen vegetables. Stir fry for 1 minute. Add in the cooked ground chicken and egg. Pour in the cooking sauce and give everything a good mix. Let cook for 2 minutes, until everything is steaming hot and cooked through.

]]>https://steamykitchen.com/44655-cauliflower-fried-rice-kale-chicken-recipe.html/feed8Chinese Bird’s Nest Soup Recipehttps://steamykitchen.com/44260-chinese-birds-nest-soup-recipe.html
https://steamykitchen.com/44260-chinese-birds-nest-soup-recipe.html#commentsMon, 19 Jun 2017 23:30:26 +0000https://steamykitchen.com/?p=44260Bird’s Nest Soup 燕窝 is one of the most luxurious and expensive delicacies in Chinese cuisine. The shallow cup-shaped nest that hang from the sides of caves takes the swiftlet bird over 30 days to build. For hundreds of years, bird’s nest soup has been prized for its health benefits, especially increasing libido. For the price […]

Bird’s Nest Soup 燕窝 is one of the most luxurious and expensive delicacies in Chinese cuisine. The shallow cup-shaped nest that hang from the sides of caves takes the swiftlet bird over 30 days to build. For hundreds of years, bird’s nest soup has been prized for its health benefits, especially increasing libido.

For the price of $100 per serving at some restaurants, you might expect the most delicious experience. In fact, the bird’s nest has very little flavor on it’s own, and its gelatinous texture might be forgettable. But what you’re buying is rarity and centuries of tradition, culture and perhaps superstition.

I’ve only had Chinese Bird’s Nest Soup a few times, the last time was about 10 years ago in Hong Kong. U.S. based Golden Nest company sent 1 ounce of their AAA grade (retail $105) bird’s nest to cook.

I recruited Mom to help me, as I’ve never cooked with such an expensive ingredient before! Mom called her sister, in Hong Kong, for a recipe.

For premium, high quality bird’s nest, the simpler and cleaner the recipe, the better. “According to the Qing Dynasty manual of gastronomy, the Suiyuan shidan, bird nest was a delicate ingredient that must not be flavoured or cooked with anything strong tasting or oily.” (source)

Quality of Bird’s Nest is Important

One of Mom’s cookbooks talks extensively about bird’s nest. There are different grades of nests, the blackish nest near the top is the lowest quality (see all the feathers?), and the spongy looking nest (middle, top), is a lesser quality, the kind that many restaurants will use but will doctor up the soup with many other ingredients.

Protecting the Swiflets is Important

Any animal product that is high highly prized and can fetch a large sum of money needs to be tightly regulated, to protect the animal. Reputable companies will wait for the swiftlet to lay their eggs, and for the birds to hatch prior to harvesting the nest. The industry is highly regulated and taxed. The problem is poachers, illegal harvesting and illegal export of bird’s nests. Only purchase bird’s nests from reputable companies. Golden Nest is based in the California, and you can look up their Better Business Bureau rating online.

How to make Bird’s Nest Soup

Because of the extreme high quality of the bird’s nest, we opted for a pleasantly sweet soup with only 3 ingredients: bird’s nest, red date (jujube) and rock sugar.

Jujube – Dried Red Dates

Dried jujube is considered a Chinese superfood for their health benefits. You’ll often find these dates in traditional Chinese herbal concoctions, soups and braised dishes. Jujube has 80x the vitamin C than grapes and apples, and they are said to “stimulate the production of white blood cells, which improves immunity, and decrease the levels of cholesterol in your bloodstream, which helps protect the liver” (source)

The taste is sweet.

Rock Sugar

Rock sugar is used often in Chinese cooking – they are golden, irregular clumps of sugar. Its taste is clean, less sweet than granulated sugar and dissolves nicely in hot water without a gritty texture.

You can find it packaged in boxes or bags, in Asian markets.

Preparing Bird’s Nest

Soak the bird’s nest overnight in cool water.

The nest should be clean of all impurities.

If you happen to get bird’s nest that contains impurities, it’s best to clean the nest one more time. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and boil the bird’s nest for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse with cool water.

But since this bird’s nest is so clean, all we needed to do was soak overnight and drain.

Bring a pot with 6 cups of water to a low simmer. Add in the drained bird’s nest and jujubes.

Keep the heat on low – you don’t want a hard, rolling boil (which would break the delicate bird’s nest). Aim for the smallest bubbles possible.

Cook for 30 minutes – 2 hours. The timing really depends on the quality of the bird’s nest that you have. For Golden Nest’s products, it only took 30 minutes of cooking to get a gelatinous texture. If you over-cook the bird’s nest, it will become gummy and break apart, ruining the very expensive delicacy!

Taste the bird’s nest – it should be soft, gelatinous, slippery-like.

Add in 4 medium chunks of rock sugar. You can turn off the heat and just let the sugar slowly dissolve. Taste and add additional sugar if you’d like. The flavor should be delicately sweet.

]]>https://steamykitchen.com/44260-chinese-birds-nest-soup-recipe.html/feed5How to Make Mongolian BBQ at Homehttps://steamykitchen.com/43914-make-mongolian-bbq-home.html
https://steamykitchen.com/43914-make-mongolian-bbq-home.html#commentsTue, 18 Apr 2017 19:08:46 +0000https://steamykitchen.com/?p=43914DIY Mongolian barbecue is one of the most fun, interactive meals you can have at home! Each person can choose their ingredients and perform a 5 minute stir-fry at the table for their custom dish. We created this recipe for San-J, using their ready-to use sauces (Mongolian BBQ, Orange, Szechuan, Teriyaki, Thai Peanut, Sweet & Tangy and Asian […]

DIY Mongolian barbecue is one of the most fun, interactive meals you can have at home! Each person can choose their ingredients and perform a 5 minute stir-fry at the table for their custom dish. We created this recipe for San-J, using their ready-to use sauces (Mongolian BBQ, Orange, Szechuan, Teriyaki, Thai Peanut, Sweet & Tangy and Asian BBQ) and San-J Tamari.

What is Mongolian BBQ?

Photo from Ang Sarap – review of The Khan Mongolian BBQ restaurant in New Zealand. Click on photo to see more photos from his feast!

It is neither Mongolian, nor BBQ! Mongolian BBQ was invented by the Taiwanese in 1951, sort of a mash between Japanese Teppanyaki and Chinese Stir-Frying.

Mongolian BBQ is usually presented as all-you-can-eat buffet style, with endless rows of ingredients to build your own custom bowl.

The base of the dish starts with noodles, though you can certainly just skip the starch and go straight for all the other ingredients.

Pile in your bowl as much vegetables, seafood, and meats as you want, choose the type of sauce you want your creation to be cooked in, and the chefs will stir-fry your dish on a large, flat iron griddle and top off the dish with fresh herbs or sesame seeds.

How to make Mongolian BBQ at Home

In our Steamy Kitchen house, we love any type of interactive meals, like fondue, raclette, Chinese hot pot, DIY Korean BBQ and of course, Mongolian BBQ. Choosing your own ingredients and cooking at the table is fun for both adults and kids alike.

Mongolian BBQ Table Set-up

It’s easy! We use a $25 portable butane stovetop, which we always have at the house for emergencies, camping, and all of our interactive meals.

The brand we own is Gas One, but the brand I recommend is a few dollars more, called Iwatani. The Iwatani is 12,000 BTU, a little more powerful than mine, but it’s just made better and sturdier.

Butane canisters last quite a long time. You’ll only need one to power the entire evening’s worth of cooking, but I recommend keeping a spare or two just in case. A four-pack of butane is about $12 on Amazon, which is actually cheaper (half the price) than what I’ve found at Walmart, Home Depot or camping supply stores.

Insert the butane, push down the safety lever to lock the butane in place and fire it up.

If the butane runs out, the flame will cease. Just unlock the safety lever, replace the butane and lock again.

You’ll also need a wok, a large frying pan or large sauté pan (a frying pan with straight, high sides), a spatula or tongs. I prefer tongs as it makes it easier to grab ingredients and stir-fry tangly noodles. You’ll also lay out all of your ingredients and cooking sauces.

Mongolian BBQ Ingredients

You can use any type of ingredient that you want, but there are some general rules to make DIY Mongolian BBQ easy.

Tips on Vegetables for Mongolia BBQ

Successful stir-frying relies on all the vegetables to finish cooking in minutes and pretty much at the same time. That means thick, tough vegetables, like carrots, need to be cut very thinly, and some vegetables, like cauliflower, need to be par-boiled prior to the stir fry. Also, some vegetables might take a little longer to cook (onion) than others (bean sprouts). I’ll show you how to deal with that in the photos below.

Cabbage: shaved or shredded. I use my large chef’s knife to cut long shreds as thin as possible. I don’t like using the large holes of a box grater – it turns the cabbage mushy and watery, which is bad for a stir-fry.

Carrots: buy pre-cut in julienne strips or use a julienne peeler, my favorite is the $10 Oxo tool. Anchor the fat end of the carrot with a fork (don’t try to hold carrot down with your fingers) and swipe across with the julienne peeler.

Bean Sprouts: Just leave whole, you can pinch the tail (root) off if desired. But I’m lazy, so I leave the tail on.

Bell Peppers: Sliced thinly. Here’s what I do. Lop off the top and bottom. (Save this for salad or just for munching)

Use knife to remove core and ribs of bell pepper.

Then slice bell pepper into thin, julienne strips.

Zucchini: Most vegetables in a noodle dish are cut into julienne strips. Generally, for a Chinese stir-fry, the chef tries to cut all ingredients to a similar size and shape. But zucchini is one of those vegetables that do better as a large dice or half-moons. That’s because this vegetable soggy and mushy when over-cooked. These are cut into 1/2″ dice.

Snow Peas or Sugar Snap Peas: Pinch the stem end and peel off the stringy part. It unzips easily. You can leave snow peas whole, but I prefer to cut peas into long strips diagonally.

Chinese Greens (Yu-Choy)– One of my favorite leafy green vegetables. Even though it’s part of the mustard family, yu-choy is very tender, sweet and easy to stir-fry. At the store, turn over the bunch and look at the bottoms of the stems. Fresh, young greens will have an almost translucent, milky-white, moist stem. If the stem is dry with a hole in the center, it’s probably old and will be bitter.

For stir-fries, I like to separate stems from the leaves. I’ll add the stems first into the wok, stir fry for a minute, and then add the leaves.

Mushrooms: Straw mushrooms are sold in cans, already cooked, so just cut in half. Slice fresh button mushrooms. I like using Japanese mushrooms -here’s information on different varieties of Japanese mushrooms and links to recipes.

Bok Choy: Separate the leaves of the bok choy, but the leaves are too thick to leave whole, so slice lengthwise. Baby bok choy is better, as it is smaller and more tender. I love stir frying with tatsoi and dwarf bok choy. Since they are so small and tender, Just cut each one in half or quarters like this:

Other Vegetables:

Tofu: Buy extra-firm, but can be hard to stir fry since it will break apart if not careful. Drain all the water, Place on large plate with several layers of paper towels. On top of tofu block, place another large plate, and then something heavy on top. Let it sit for 20 minutes. This will press out a lot of water from the tofu – making the tofu more firm and easier to stir-fry with.

Corn: Fresh, canned or frozen. Honestly, I prefer frozen!

Peas: Fresh or frozen.

Tomatoes: Large dice, but try to drain liquid and seeds from the tomatoes (save the liquid for your morning smoothie)

Bamboo Shoots: Canned, cut into julienne or strips

Baby Corn: Canned, cut into smaller pieces

Green Beans: Parboil or steam first. Easiest way – boil a cup of water in a small saucepan, add in the beans, cover and let cook for 2 minutes until just about cooked through.

Broccoli – Parboil or steam partway. Or, you can cut the florets into the finest pieces.

Spinach – Fresh spinach leaves

Meats & Seafood

Meats: If you go to an Asian market, you’ll likely find already-sliced meats, packaged specifically for Hot Pot, Teppanyaki, Korean BBQ & Mongolian BBQ. These meats are sliced frozen by the butcher on a electric meat slicer. They are so thin, almost shaven, that they’ll cook in seconds.

We like using chicken and ribeye.

If you aren’t near an Asian market, head over to the frozen foods section in your regular grocery store. Look for “shaved beef” that’s packaged for Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches.

If you slice the meats yourself at home, slice thinly, then cut into long, thin strips.

Seafood: Shrimp and bay scallop (the smaller scallop) are great in Mongolian BBQ. It’s a little harder to stir-fry fish, unless it’s firm fish. For all seafood, drain and pat very dry.

Base of Flavor: Aromatics

Onion:Slice onions very thinly.

Garlic: I like to slice the garlic thinly as well, especially if you are new to stir-frying. Minced garlic using a garlic crusher makes the garlic too easy to burn. Burnt garlic tastes bitter, so you really have to cook fast and know exactly when to add the garlic. Sliced garlic gives you more leeway.

Green Onion: Cut into 1″ lengths or chopped

Ginger: I love stir-frying with ginger, but, similar to garlic, ginger turns bitter when burnt. Here are some options. First peel the brown ginger skin – just scrape off the skin with a spoon.

Grate fresh ginger with a rasp grater. You can mix 1/4 teaspoon of grated ginger into your cooking sauce to use later in the stir-fry.

Use a vegetable peeler and peel very thin slices of fresh ginger. Use chef’s knife to cut into thin julienne strips, then mince as finely as you can.

For just a little hint of ginger, grate the ginger with rasp grater. Get about 1 teaspoon of grated ginger between your fingers and squeeze the ginger juice into a small bowl. Mix the ginger juice with the cooking sauce to use later in the stir-fry.

Cilantro Stem: You’re probably familiar with using cilantro leaves as a garnish, or chopped to add last minute to a dish, but I like the cilantro stem even more. Mince the stems, and add to the wok the same time you add the garlic, green onion and ginger. This method allows a gentle cilantro flavor throughout the entire dish…not just when you happen to bite into a cilantro leaf in other dishes.

Variety of Toppings

It’s always fun to add crunchy toppings or a sprinkling of fresh herbs. Here are some of our favorites:

Chopped, roasted, unsalted peanuts

Sesame seeds

Crunchy fried noodle

Almond slivers

Chopped herbs: cilantro leaves, green onion, Thai basil

Noodles for Mongolian BBQ

You can use any type of noodles that you like, even thin spaghetti pasta if you can’t find Asian noodles. There are healthy, gluten-free options, if that’s important to you! Rice noodles, Korean sweet potato noodles, egg noodles, zucchini noodles, thick Japanese udon noodles, ramen noodles….the list goes on and on.

Boil the noodles according to package instructions, but shave off about 45 seconds from the stated cooking time (the noodles will continue to cook in the wok during the stir-fry, and you don’t want over-cooked, mushy noodles!) After cooking, immediately drain and rinse with cool water to immediately stop the cooking. I like to mix in just a drizzle of Asian sesame oil or regular cooking oil to keep the noodles from sticking and clumping to each other.

Today, we’re using fresh Chinese noodles:

These are found in the Asian market, in the refrigerated section. The noodles are already partly cooked. All that I need to do is add very hot water to heat up the noodles for about 30 seconds.

Then drain immediately and mix in a very small drizzle of sesame oil to prevent sticking.

Cooking Sauces

There are so many choices! My client, San-J, has 7 different cooking sauces that are ready-to-use.

*What is Tamari? Tamari is Japanese soy sauce that is made from 100% soybeans, go through a naturally brewed fermentation process and is the best quality soy sauce that you can use.

San-J’s Tamari is made from non-GMO soybeans, vegan, gluten-free and kosher. Read more about Tamari here.

Step by Step: DIY Mongolian BBQ

Follow these steps and you’ll get a perfect, light stir-fry, every time. There are a lot of photos, but the entire cooking process is about 7 minutes!

Step 1: Meat or Seafood

The first step in any stir fry starts with the meat or seafood. Proteins are cooked first, until seared and just about halfway cooking through.

Add cooking oil to the wok and let it heat up until very hot, but not smoking. Oil shimmers when it’s the perfect temperature.

This allows you to get really nice browning on the protein without any other ingredient interfering or vegetables causing too much moisture (which would make the protein boil or steam instead of sear). See how there is plenty of room in the wok to allow each shrimp to cook in the oil?

Cook the meat or seafood on one side, then flip to brown the other side.

Remove the protein once it’s halfway cooked through. Set aside for now.

Step 2: Aromatics

There should be oil left in the wok. If not, add in a little more oil and let it heat up until it shimmers again. Add in your desired aromatics. For my dish, I’m adding onion and sliced garlic.

Once it’s fragrant (aromatic!) it’s time for vegetables.

Step 3: Vegetables

Add vegetables in the order of those taking longest to cook to shortest time.

]]>Authentic Chinese Spring Rolls should be smooth, light, crisp-crackly skin and small enough to enjoy in 4 bites. The filling is also light, full of tender-crisp vegetables and you should be able to taste and distinguish every single ingredient in the filling. Unfortunately, the only time you can find really awesome Chinese spring rolls are when you make them at home, Chinatown restaurants or at my Mom’s house. Here’s my Mom’s Chinese Spring Rolls recipe for you to enjoy, with step by step how-to photos.

My Mom’s Chinese Spring/Egg rolls are absolutely on the list of top 5 favorite foods of all time. It’s not something I make often, the deep frying and the time it takes makes it an indulgence. But when I do make spring rolls, I try to make a TON of them because they freeze perfectly and go direct from freezer to fryer.

We’ve made many variations of egg/spring rolls, from pork, shrimp, crawfish, seafood, beef, vegetarian and even with tofu (yum!) I’m sharing my Chinese spring rolls with chicken recipe version with you, which is my boys’ filling of choice.

I’ve got lots of technique tips and step by step photos to help you master the very best spring roll that my Mom would be proud of!

Step by Step: Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe

The vegetables I’ve chosen to use for this Chinese Spring Roll with Chicken recipe are cabbage and carrots.

TIP: Do not use a box grater to grate the vegetables, grating releases too much liquid/water. Use either a food processor with thin slicing attachment, a mandoline like I’ve used here (I LOVE this one by Oxo for $15) or shred by knife.

You can julienne cut carrots by hand or use mandoline like this to first get thin slices.

After slicing thin with a mandoline, use knife to thinly slice further into very thin matchsticks. Notice how many times I’ve purposely used the word, “thin.”

Whisk together marinade ingredients for the ground chicken.

Mix with ground chicken.

Saute the ground chicken with just a bit of oil. Then, remove chicken to a bowl and set aside.

Next wipe the wok clean and stir fry the vegetables along with ginger, garlic and green onion.

TIP: Meat and vegetables are cooked separately. This ensures that the meat browns well – and prevents everything from being an overcooked, soggy clump. Meat will taste like meat, and the vegetables will have a crisp, clean flavor.

Add the meat back into the wok.

Add in oyster sauce.

Toss! Toss! Toss!

Let cool on a baking sheet.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips for Filling

Tilt the baking pan on one side. This lets any extra liquid/juice dribble down, away from the filling, Discard the liquid. Liquid = makes wrapper wet = not good. The drier the filling, the better. You can also blot the filling with a wad of paper towels to get rid of any excess oil.

Here’s my favorite brand of wrapper. It comes frozen, so you’ll have to defrost.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips for Good Wrappers

The best 2 ways to defrost spring roll wrappers: 1-overnight in the refrigerator 2-on the counter for 30 minutes. Once the wrapper are defrosted, open the package and immediately cover with a barely damp towel or paper towel to keep moist. The wrappers will dry out and crack quickly if left uncovered.

If the wrappers dry out and are stiff, you can put a few wrappers on a plate, cover with a damp towel and microwave on medium for 10 seconds. The wrappers will soften up.

Good spring roll wrappers are found in Asian markets. These are thin, fry up to a shatteringly thin crispy spring roll. Do not buy spring roll wrappers that you find in regular supermarkets near the produce section (usually refrigerated, next to the tofu). Those “pasta sheets” are way too thick and fry up to a chewy, thick, bubbly, hot mess.

Keep the spring roll (or egg roll) sheets under barely damp cloth or paper towel. They dry out very easily. If they dry out, they break apart.

See how thin this is? Almost paper thin.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips for Wrapping

For the truly fanatical, there are 2 sides to the spring roll wrapper – but you have to look very very carefully. One side is smoother than the other. The smoother side should be outward facing. It’s really not absolutely necessary to even pay attention to this tip unless you a) want to have the very best looking spring roll and b) have good eyesight because the difference is really minor. The smoother side fries up just a tiny bit nicer looking. It’s purely aesthetics. Something my Mom taught me, so I’m teaching you.

Place wrapper like diamond, as shown, on a clean, dry surface. Place 1 tablespoon of filling near corner. No more than that

Less filling, the better. Overstuffed spring rolls break apart in the oil. 1 tablespoon is all you need!

WRONG: See the right side of the wrapper, how it’s skewing out? See next picture to see how it rolls.

WRONG: That right side that skewed out rolls up like this – giant air pocket will let oil seep in, filling fall out.

The right way: Imagine if you were Martha Stewart folding up her bedsheets. Or a clerk at the Gap folding t-shirts. Or the abs of male Olympic swimmer. Nice, tight and even.

Paint a little cornstarch slurry along the edge – just as if you were lickin’ an envelope. But don’t lick it. Finger paint.

Close it up. See how nice and neat the egg roll is wrapped? No holes, no air pockets. Very Martha Stewart.

Place them seam side down (helps secure the corner so that the corner doesn’t pop out)

Keep them all covered with plastic wrap to prevent drying out. They dry out easily.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips for Storing & Freezing

Single layer only. If you put them on top of each other (without layer of plastic wrap between them, they will stick together. You can put another layer of spring rolls on TOP of the plastic wrap (but don’t’ forget to cover them too).

If you want to freeze spring rolls – freeze them just like this. If you don’t have a freezer this big, then line up the spring rolls on a plate, with plastic wrap between each layer. Freeze. Once frozen, gather up all the spring rolls and put them in a freezer safe plastic bag. They have to freeze in a single layer, not touching. Otherwise, they’ll all stick together. Once they are frozen, you can store them however you want.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips for Frying

For deep frying, the wider the pot, the more oil you’ll need. But too small of a pot, you’ll only be able to fry a couple of egg rolls at a time. Woks are perfect – the round shape, concave shape means less oil is needed to fill wok.

Ancient Chinese secret: Stick a wooden chopstick straight down in the oil just like this. If the oil bubbles around the wood, it’s hot enough. If no little bubbles around the chopstick = not hot enough. Mom taught me that. But make sure it’s wood or bamboo chopsticks – plastic ones melt. If you don’t have a wood chopstick, use end of a wooden spatula.

Carefully SLIDE the spring rolls in. Inspect each spring roll for corners that have popped open. Fix with more cornstarch slurry if needed.

Fry a few at a time.

Chinese Spring Rolls Recipe Tips

Wide deep woks or skillets are good. Because of the shape of the wok, you’ll end up using less oil. Buy a wok. (wink!)

Don’t over-crowd the sprng rolls in the pan. They won’t cook evenly.

Keep turning ’em to brown evenly. Once they are golden brown, they are done.

Place them on a rack to drain.

I hope you have enjoyed our Chinese Spring Rolls recipe – feel free to customize the recipe with ground pork, ground beef, or other vegetables!

For the Cornstarch Slurry

Prepare the Filling

In a large bowl, combine the soy sauce, wine, pepper and cornstarch. Add in the chicken and mix well. Let marinate for 10 minutes (or up to overnight in the refrigerator).

Heat a wok or large saute pan over high heat. When hot, swirl in just 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil. Stir fry the ground chicken until browned. Remove browned ground chicken from wok to a bowl and set aside.

Wipe the wok clean and turn heat to medium. When just starting to get hot, swirl in the remaining cooking oil. Add in the green onion, garlic and ginger and cook for 30 seconds. Take care not to burn these aromatics. Add in the carrots and cabbage. Stir well and turn the heat to medium-high. Stir fry the vegetables for 2 minutes, or until the carrots have softened. Add the cooked chicken back into the wok, stir well. Add in the oyster sauce and toss again. Spread the mixture out on a baking sheet to let cool. Prop up the baking sheet on one end so that any liquid collects on the other side. When the mixture is cool, discard the liquid.

Wrapping Spring Rolls

Mix cornstarch slurry: in a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water. Open the egg roll wrapper package, cover with barely damp towel to prevent drying out.

Frying Spring Rolls

When ready to fry, heat 1 1/2″ of oil in a wok or deep, heavy skillet to 350F (see tip in photos if you don’t have thermometer). Carefully slide in the egg rolls, a few at a time, to the oil to fry. Turn the egg rolls occassionally to brown evenly and fry for about 3 minutes. Let cool on rack. Repeat with remaining.

Feel free to use ground pork, beef, chicken or turkey in this recipe. Chinese rice wine is an optional ingredient, substitute with dry sherry (or just leave it out).

To Freeze Spring Rolls: After rolling the spring rolls (but before frying), insert them in a freezer bag, in a single layer. Try not to overcrowd. Close bag, freeze.

Frying Frozen Spring Rolls: When ready to cook, you’ll go from freezer to frying, no defrosting necessary. Defrosting the spring rolls will make them soggy, wrinkly and ugly. Prepare your deep fryer (or wok with frying oil). When oil is 350F, use long tongs or a spider gently lower a few frozen spring rolls into the oil. Please be careful, any ice crystals will splatter in the oil.

To Reheat Leftover Spring Rolls: Heat your toaster oven or oven to 300F. Place Spring Rolls on a rack and into the oven. Bake for about 5-7 minutes, until crispy.

]]>https://steamykitchen.com/22276-chinese-spring-rolls-with-chicken-recipe.html/feed255Yangzhou Fried Rice Recipehttps://steamykitchen.com/42839-yangzhou-fried-rice-recipe.html
https://steamykitchen.com/42839-yangzhou-fried-rice-recipe.html#commentsMon, 24 Oct 2016 21:43:57 +0000https://steamykitchen.com/?p=42839Yangzhou Fried Rice Recipe Fuchsia Dunlop is one of the foremost experts in Chinese cuisine, and was one of the first modern Western chefs to be classically trained in China. Two of her books, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook and Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking serve as my resources for authentic Chinese recipes. “Fuchsia Dunlop . . […]

The food of Jiangnan is light (unlike Sichuan’s oily, chile-laden food), and as the title of the book suggests, relies heavily on the bounties of the sea and plentiful rice paddies.

This book’s recipes are near and dear to my family – this is the region of my Dad’s hometown cooking. We’re delighted to share with you Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe for Yangzhou Fried Rice.

What is Yangzhou Fried Rice?

Yang zhou chao fan 扬州炒饭 is a fried rice dish that features egg along with leftover bits of ham, shrimp and meat. At Chinese restaurants in America, sometimes the dish is simply referred to as, “House Fried Rice.” Ingredients may differ from day to day, depending on what leftover protein is available.

Yangzhou Fried Rice was invented by Qing China‘s Yi Bingshou (1754–1815) and the dish was named Yangzhou fried rice since Yi was once the regional magistrate of Yangzhou (source)

Fuchsia Dunlop’s Yangzhou Fried Rice

“Late one night, I dropped into my friend Yang Bin’s restaurant in the old quarter of Yangzhou for a bowlful of noodles, and happened also to meet his cooking master, Huang Wanqi.

Chef Huang started talking about a 2,000-year-old gastronomic text, “The Root of Tastes” (ben wei pian), and told me he thought Yangzhou cooking best represented the subtle magic it described. He went on to explain the mysteries of Yangzhou fried rice, the only dish from this ancient gastronomic capital that has so far achieved international fame. He told me how to cook the secondary ingredients in chicken broth, and discussed the different roles that beaten egg could play in the dish.

“If you begin by frying the beaten egg, and then add the rice,” he said, “you will have ‘golden fragments’ of egg in the rice (sui jin fen). If, instead, you fry the rice and then pour in the egg, the golden liquid coats each grain of rice, so it’s like ‘silver wrapped in gold’ (jin guo yin).” Both, he said, were traditional methods.
You don’t have to go into such detail to appreciate this dish, one of the finest variations on the fried rice theme. The rice is speckled with little nuggets of delicious ingredients and infused with the umami richness of chicken stock.

The following is my version, which omits the hard-to-find luxuries of sea cucumber and freshwater crabmeat, but otherwise follows the traditional method. If you want to make the totally authentic version, add ¾ oz (25g) chopped, soaked dried sea cucumber and ¾ oz (25g) freshwater crabmeat, and substitute tiny freshwater shrimp for the saltwater shrimp.”

Tips for successful fried rice

I prefer scrambling the egg separate from the rice — I get a better result with a lighter texture and fluffier rice. Many times, if your wok or pan is not hot enough, and you add the egg on top of the rice, “silver wrapped in gold (jin guo yin)” – you might end up with mushier, wetter fried rice.

Make sure you use leftover rice, that’s been previously refrigerated. This also helps with making a lighter fried rice with grains separated. If you use steaming-hot, freshly cooked rice, you’ll end up with a goopy mess. That’s because the refrigerator dries out the rice a bit – which is a good thing, because we are adding liquid to the fried rice (chicken stock, Chinese rice wine). You’ll get best results with Jasmine rice, or other medium grained rice. Short-grained rice (used in sushi, Japanese or Korean cooking) is fine too, but not normally used in this recipe. Short grained rice is a little heavier and stickier.

Ingredients are cooked separately, then added all back together for a very specific reason. If you throw all the ingredients into the wok and try to cook everything at once, the rice will end up tasting like mish-mash. Also, different ingredients have different cooking times — by the time the pork is cooked through, your chicken will be overcooked. Authentic Chinese fried rice allows you to taste each and every ingredient – so that the shrimp tastes like shrimp….and the egg tastes like egg.

Instead of seasoning with soy sauce, the fried rice is flavored with chicken stock. The stock is added to the ingredients along with Chinese rice wine. Using stock instead of soy sauce keeps the fried rice light in flavor and color.

The signature characteristic of Yangzhou Fried Rice is using whatever ingredients you have on hand. Diced leftover roast pork, a few mushrooms, a handful of shrimp, a cupful of peas. Here are some ingredient tips:

Shrimp: I like using small, tiny, already cooked cooked shrimp. Alternatively, you can use larger shrimp, just cut them up into smaller pieces to make it easier to stir fry and eat. If you are using uncooked shrimp, that’s fine too, just throw it into the wok a little sooner than the recipe states, to give it time to cook through.

Mushroom: The recipe calls for Chinese dried mushrooms, but feel free to use fresh Shiitake mushrooms. No need to soak. Just discard the stem and chop.

Pork: Honestly, an optional ingredient – if you have it, great! Make sure you dice the pork tenderloin very small (like the size of a frozen diced carrot). Here’s an easy shortcut – use ground pork instead. Many times, Yangzhou Fried Rice will have diced Chinese Roast Pork – which is what I love to use. Don’t have any pork? Use any other protein, including ground turkey. Not authentic, but hey, fried rice is supposed to be the most flexible recipe in the world!

Peas: Almost always, I use frozen peas. I don’t even defrost them, just throw them in the wok.

Chicken: Leftover, cooked chicken meat is perfect. Just dice very small. Sometimes, we’ll just pull meat off a rotisserie chicken and set aside for fried rice.

I like to add minced cilantro to the recipe. In fact, I use cilantro stems that are minced very fine. The cilantro stems in at the same time as the rice.

Directions:

Cut the pork, shrimp, ham, chicken, mushroom, if using, into small dice. Thinly slice the spring onion greens. Beat the egg with a little salt and pepper. Break the rice up into small clumps to make it easier to fry.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a wok over a high flame. Add the pork and stir-fry briefly until the pork is pale. Add the ham, chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, peas, and continue to stir-fry for 1–2 minutes, until everything is hot and sizzling. Add the Chinese rice wine, then pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Season with salt, then pour off into a bowl and set aside.

Rinse and dry the wok and return it to the heat with the remaining oil. When the oil is hot, add the beaten egg mixture and swirl it around the base of the wok. When the egg is half-cooked, add the green onions and all the rice and stir-fry, breaking up any clumps. When the rice is very hot, smells delicious and makes a popping sound around the edges of the wok, add the reserved ingredients in their stock sauce. Mix well and continue to stir-fry for another 30 seconds or so, seasoning with salt or pepper if you wish.

So many Asian restaurants feature pork belly on their menus, especially Pork Belly Buns. Here’s a version that I actually enjoy even more, Pork Belly Buns in Lettuce Cups. Luscious, tender pieces of pork belly with deep caramelized edges sit on top of a bed of crunchy and tangy vegetables. All wrapped in cool, crisp, iceberg lettuce cups.

Here’s our fool-proof method for cooking pork belly.

How to Buy Pork Belly

Pork belly, salted, cured and sliced is what you know as bacon. When buying pork belly, you want the belly whole, not sliced. Look for pieces that have lots of meat. The piece above is alright, I actually prefer less fat.

The skin should be firm and not sticky, the fat should be pure white. Smell it – it shouldn’t smell like much. If you get a sharp, strong, ammonia smell, don’t buy it.

I like getting my pork belly at large Asian markets – because they sell A LOT of it and the inventory moves fast. I’ve purchased at regular supermarkets, but I always have the butcher open the package so that I can smell the meat.

Cleaning Pork Belly

Before cooking pork belly, it’s important to clean it. That’s because pork belly includes the skin along with the meat. I like to give it a good scrubbing, especially on the skin. You can clean the pork belly with just a handful of kosher salt (larger grains than regular table salt) or sugar.

Take a handful of salt (maybe like 2 tablespoons), and rub the pork belly skin, just like you would exfoliate your own skin. The rubbing action will clean the meat, loosen any bits of dirt, hairs, blood, tiny bone fragments, etc. Rinse and pat dry.

Pork Belly Braising Sauce

Dark soy sauce is different than regular soy sauce. It is less salty, thicker and has added sugar. Dark soy sauce is used in many Chinese braises, especially for pork belly! Lee Kum Kee is my favorite brand, but Koon Chun is good too. If you can’t find dark soy sauce, substitute with the following: 1/2 cup soy sauce + 1/2 cup brown sugar or molasses + 1/4 cup water. Simmer for a few minutes until reduced by half. It should be thick and glossy. For gluten-free diets, use tamari instead of soy sauce to make the dark soy.

Chinese rice wine – is cooking wine made from rice. Substitute with dry sherry, though I’ve also been known to use cognac, too.

Sweetener – use honey, dark brown sugar, or maltose, which is what is traditionally used in Chinese recipes for roast Peking duck and even brewing beer. Maltose is less sweet than sugar or honey. May be hard to find outside of Asian supermarkets.

Choose One Cooking Method

Sous Vide Pork Belly

Our favorite sous vide machine depends on your budget. What’s sitting on my counter is a Oliso Sous Vide – LOVE IT – but very expensive. We sous vide at least 2-3x a week, and it’s an essential appliance for my kitchen. For a cheaper sous vide, try the Anova (Amazon has it the cheapest / Here’s our Anova review). ChefSteps is coming out with their version – called Joule. It’s sold out (that was fast!) but get on the list for the next batch. We just got our beta unit today to test. I’ll write a full review in the next couple of weeks.

To sous vide: add all of the ingredients in the recipe to a bag. Set temperature for 176F/80C and cook for 6-8 hours.

Easy Oven Pork Belly

The next best method to cook pork belly is in the oven. Pick a pot with lid that’s not too big. The pork belly should fit nice and snug in the pot. You may want to cut the pork belly in pieces so that they fit better. If you use a pot that’s way too big in diameter, the liquid will not reach up the sides of the pork belly, and will also evaporate too fast. Make a snug tent with tin foil and use hands to mold tin foil over the pork belly and liquid. This will help keep the pork belly moist by keeping the liquid trapped near the meat.

Add everything to the pot, cover with lid and roast for 4-6 hours.

After Cooking, Reduce Sauce

With either method of cooking, you’ll pour the sauce into a saucepan and let it reduce to half, so that the sauce is thick and syrupy.

Dice Pork Belly & Fry

Dice the pork belly.

Heat a wok or saute pan. Drizzle a little cooking oil and add in the pork belly. Spread the pieces in one layer so that each piece is touching the pan. Leave it alone for a minute, then give it a good stir/flip. Repeat until all sides of the pork belly is browned and edges crisp.

Pour in the reduced sauce and give it a quick stir. Cook just for a few seconds until all pieces are coated.

Quick Asian Slaw

I love using bell peppers and carrots with this recipe. Julienne the bell peppers and cut the carrots into matchstick. You can use pre-shredded carrots, julienne by hand or use this inexpensive amazing julienne tool.

The vegetables are tossed with a bit of sweetened rice vinegar. There are 2 kinds of rice vinegar – regular and seasoned (or sweetened). If you can only find regular, which has no sugar, then add in a generous pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Alternatively, you can also use cider vinegar with sugar. The sugar will tame the sourness of the vinegar.

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 200F.

2. Scrub the skin of the pork belly with a handful of salt or sugar. Rinse and pat dry.

3. In a pot, stir together the dark soy sauce, wine, water star anise, ginger and honey. Add in the pork belly. Create a snug tent with the tin foil - use your hands to mold the tin foil over the pork belly and liquid. Cover pot with lid.

NOTE: If you are cooking sous vide, omit the water, and just add all ingredients to sous vide bag. Sous vide 176F/80C for 6-8 hours.

4. Roast at 200F for 4-6 hours. When done, lift out pork belly and dice. From the sauce, discard the ginger and star anise. Simmer the sauce for a few minutes, until reduced and thickened.

5. To make the slaw, combine bell peppers, carrots and cucumber with the seasoned vinegar. Taste, and adjust with more vinegar if needed. Slaw should be slightly sweet and tangy.

6. Heat a wok or saute pan over high heat. When hot, swirl in the cooking oil. Add the pork belly dice in a single layer and let cook for 1 minute, stir and repeat for all sides of the pork belly. Add in the reduced sauce and stir well, let sauce reduce even more (about 1 minute). Serve with lettuce cups and top with a sprig of cilantro.

]]>https://steamykitchen.com/42487-pork-belly-lettuce-cups-recipe.html/feed5How to Make Crunchy Roasted Peanuts in the Microwavehttps://steamykitchen.com/42053-how-to-roast-peanuts-microwave-recipe.html
https://steamykitchen.com/42053-how-to-roast-peanuts-microwave-recipe.html#commentsWed, 06 Apr 2016 21:25:53 +0000https://steamykitchen.com/?p=42053How to roast peanuts in the microwave In this recipe, you’ll learn: Make crunchy, healthy, roasted peanuts in the microwave – in less than 10 minutes! No oil, no fats. Variations include: Honey Roasted Peanuts, Chinese Five Spice Peanuts and Japanese Furikake Peanuts. Make your own crunchy roasted peanuts, with your favorite seasoning, in less […]

Make your own crunchy roasted peanuts, with your favorite seasoning, in less than 10 minutes! We love these peanuts as a snack (perfect with a cold beer), to sprinkle on top of Chinese congee, or to even toss in a salad. Make them spicy (add dried chili flakes), sweet (honey), and even savory with Asian spices and seasonings.

Our favorite flavors are the Chinese Five Spice Peanuts and Japanese Furikake Peanuts. I’ve also included a recipe for Honey Roasted Peanuts – and from there you can customize your own flavor.

My Mom first learned this microwave peanut roasting technique years ago, in a Chinese cookbook, but the recipe required using a stovetop and a microwave. We’ve simplified the technique, and made roasted peanuts 100% in the microwave.

What kind of peanut?

You’ll start with shelled, raw peanuts. If you go to an Asian market, you’ll find red-skinned raw peanuts that is perfect for this recipe. Of course, you can use a different raw peanut. Just make sure that they are shelled and raw.

Choose any of these spices

There are so many choices! You can just start with honey and salt, to make Honey Roasted Peanuts in the microwave, or your favorite spice blend – like a bbq rub. Here are some Asian spices:

Chinese Five Spice Powder

This is a blend of star anise, cinnamon, clove, fennel and Sichuan peppercorns, though the spice combination can vary. This spice is easy to find at most grocery stores.

It gives a warm, sweet flavor to stir fries and braises. Chinese Five Spice is concentrated, a little goes a long ways!

Star Anise

Star anise has a beautiful licorice flavor, it’s meant to be used whole (but not eaten). It’s used in many Chinese braised dishes, especially meats, and also used in Vietnamese Pho. Star Anise is an essential component to these recipes:

Japanese Furikake

Furikake is dried seasoning made of any combination of: seaweed, bonito flakes, sesame seeds, freeze dried salmon, egg, roe and dehydrated vegetables. Its most common use is to be sprinkled on plain rice, to provide savory, sweet and salty flavor — and to provide a nice crunchy topping.

I love the history and origins of Furikake – in 1912, a Japanese pharmacist combined dried small fish, sesame seeds and seaweed to help with calcium deficiency. Later, during WWI, modern Furikake was created for the masses and military to combat malnourishment.

Today, the condiment has many different flavors, and is used as a topping for many things, other than just rice! I love it sprinkled on popcorn. Furikake sprinkled on our Roasted Peanuts is addictive!

Roasting Peanuts in Microwave

The first step is to combine 1 cup of water with your desired seasonings. Here I’m using soy sauce, sugar, salt, Chinese Five Spice Powder and Star Anise.

2. Cover, microwave for 2 minutes:

3. Add raw peanuts:

4. Cover, microwave for 2 minutes:

5. Drain peanuts:

6. Divide peanuts into 2 batches on large plates in single layer:

7. Microwave, uncovered, for 2 minutes:

8. Give it a good stir:

9. Microwave another 2 minutes:

10. Another good stir:

11. Microwave 30 seconds:

The peanuts should be roasted, golden brown.

A few of the peanuts might be a little more pale – if too many are pale, keep repeating the 30 second microwave/stir until roasted. If you carefully taste the peanut, the texture will still be soft (they will turn crunchy after cooling completely).

Here’s a pale peanut – but since there’s only one of them, I’m just tossing that bad nut out – the rest of the peanuts are perfect.

12. Immediately transfer nuts to baking sheet to cool completely. As the peanuts cool, they’ll be come crispy and crunchy – just be patient and let them cool.

Chinese soups can be heavy, filling and fiery, such as Chinese Hot & Sour Soup, or light, clean and cleansing, like this Chinese Daikon Soup. These kinds of everyday soups are simple to make, require just a handful of ingredients (in this case, four ingredients – actually, three, if you don’t want to use cilantro) and so good for you.

There are 2 essential ingredients to this soup: daikon and pork. An optional ingredient is dried scallops (we’ll talk more about that later) and garnish with fresh cilantro. At times, I like to also add carrots to the soup.

Shortcut to clean, clear broth

Have you ever made meat or bone broth and seen white or grayish foam forming on top of the water? What is it? Well, it’s a combination of surface protein, dirt, minuscule bone fragments, fats, etc. All that stuff can make your broth cloudy and gritty.

For the best broth made from meat and/or bones, the raw meat must first be parboiled for a few minutes in order to remove all that “gunk.” I do this by bringing a large pot of water to a boil, then adding the bones/meat to the water and return to a hard, rolling boil for about 5-7 minutes. The rollicking, harsh boiling water will give the meat a good wash and scrub, releasing particles, solidifying protein, loosening and bits that don’t belong in my clear broth. Then, I’ll drain the dirty water, give the meat or bones a rinse and start the broth afresh with clean water in the pot.

While all this does take an extra 15 minutes of your time, it’s absolutely worth the effort.

There’s a shortcut to this, especially if you’re only using chunks of meat to make the broth. We buy pork roasts when they are on sale, then cut them up into smaller-than-fist sized chunks to freeze and make soups.

Give each piece of pork a jiggle in the boiling water. Turn the pork over.

Drain and discard the cloudy water.

Pour the remaining half of the boiling water on pork again.

Give each piece a jiggle and wiggle and discard the cloudy, dirty water again.

Final step: rinse the pork with cool water from the faucet. Now it’s clean, and ready for broth making.

What is Daikon?

Daikon is white radish that’s mild and sweet in flavor when cooked, and delicate yet with a spicy kick when grated and eaten raw. In Asia, the daikon is used in so many ways: pickled, fried, simmered, stewed, grated, mashed and shredded. In Chinese cuisine, it’s most popular use is in soups, braised for hours with beef, or shredded to use in steamed and pan-fried daikon cake.

You’ve probably eaten it raw at Japanese sushi restaurants (they serve it in a finely shredded mount along with sashimi), or julienned and pickled with carrots at a Vietnamese restaurant.

They last quite a long time in the refrigerator. To store, I cut off as much green leaves as possible, wrap each daikon tightly in plastic wrap and store in crisper. They’ll last for at least one week.

To use, peel with vegetable peeler first, trim and discard the tip and end. To prepare for this Chinese Daikon Soup recipe, you’ll cut the daikon into chunks.

What are Dried Scallops?

Our Daikon soup is made with pork broth and flavored with dried scallops if you have them. Dried scallops are expensive a little harder to find outside of Asian supermarkets, so it’s an optional ingredient. The dried scallops give the soup a big flavor boost of umami, but here are ingredient substitutions to add umami (deep, meaty, savory flavor):

Dried Chinese or shiitake mushrooms (3-4 whole)

Fresh Chinese or shiitake mushrooms (4-5 whole)

Dried shrimp (1 tablespoon)

Small chunk of salt-cured ham, like Virginia country ham (1-2 ounces)

Or – just leave it out! We’ve made this soup plenty of times without the expensive dried scallops or other flavor boosters.

If you are using dried scallops for soup, you can just rinse the scallops (gets rid of any dust) and plop them into your pot for soup. If you are using the scallops in a stir fry, you must soak the dried scallops in hot water for about 15-30 minutes before using (depends on how big the scallops are.) You can then shred the scallops with your fingers.

Pressure Cooker, Slow Cooker or Stovetop

This Chinese Daikon Soup can be made in a pressure cooker, slow cooker or on the stove.

For Pressure Cooker

Add all ingredients, fill with water and set to cook 20 minutes under pressure.

We’re testing out the Ming Tsai Pressure Cooker that HSN sells – it’s such a popular item that it’s been sold out since the day it appeared on-air with Ming Tsai! I’ll write a separate review of the pressure cooker another time.

After cooking under pressure, you can wait for the pressure to release naturally, or you can manually release it. I like using a thick terry kitchen towel and tongs.

After the soup is done, you can discard the pork meat, season with salt and serve with minced fresh cilantro if desired.

For Slow Cookers

Add all ingredients to slow cooker. Set to cook low for 8 hours (or more)

For Stovetop

Add all ingredients to large pot. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to low, cover with lid, leaving a little gap for steam to escape and simmer for 1 hour (good) or 2 hours (better) or 3 hours (best flavor.)

Chinese Daikon Soup Recipe

Servings: 6-8

Prep Time:10 minutes

Cook Time:2 hours

Use any kind of pork for this soup - I use what ever is one sale! Spareribs, roast, loin all work great. You'll season with salt at the end. Remember that Chinese soups aren't meant to be overly salty - this soup should be delicate in flavor, just a hint of salt. Note: You can add in chunks of carrots along with the daikon, if you'd like.